Premier League: 11 of 20 clubs could have made profits in 2016-17 without fans at games

More than half of Premier League clubs could have played in empty stadiums and still made a pre-tax profit in the first season of the current broadcast deal, BBC research has found.

In 2016-17, during which clubs benefited from a record £8.3bn in global TV revenue, matchday income contributed less than 20p in every £1 earned by 18 top-flight outfits.

The number of clubs that would have recorded pre-tax profits even if matchday income was taken away rose from two in 2015-16 to 11 in 2016-17.

Dr Rob Wilson, a sport finance specialist at Sheffield Hallam University, said the previous £3.018bn broadcast deal struck in 2012 signalled a permanent change to top-flight football as a business in England.

"That is when the focus really went toward generating TV money rather than matchday ticket receipts," he told BBC Sport.

"The revenue structures of those clubs are fairly well there to stay now.

"When you get a £120m payout from the Premier League for kicking a ball around, you can play in an empty stadium if you need to.

Bournemouth, with the smallest ground capacity in the Premier League of just 11,450 and who intend to build a bigger stadium, had a turnover of almost £136.5m in 2016-17, with £5.2m from tickets. That is less than 4p in every £1 of its income for the season.

So just how important is it to have fans coming through the turnstiles?

"I'd say they are the most important element," said Football Supporters' Federation chair Malcolm Clarke.

"Players and managers come and go, but we are always there. The reason that they can get lucrative TV deals is because the product shows the crowd, the noise, the away fans and the atmosphere - it is all part of it.

"On one level they don't need the fans because they have got so much money from broadcasters, but at another level they do need fans to keep an attractive product.

"How boring would it be to watch a Premier League game in an empty stadium?"

In a statement, the Premier League said clubs "work hard to fill their stadiums" through a number of ticketing offers, highlighting the £30 cap on away tickets introduced at the start of the 2016-17 season.

"The high-quality football produced by clubs, combined with the commitment of fans, led to an extremely high stadium utilisation of 96% in the Premier League last season, and similar levels have been achieved for many consecutive years," the statement continued.

Following relegation from the Premier League last season, Swansea and West Brom have reduced ticket prices. Their TV incomes have been slashed and replaced by the first instalment of parachute payments.

Swansea will also continue to subsidise travelling members so they do not spend more than £20 for away tickets.

Away tickets are not capped at £30 in the Championship, and Swans chief operating officer Chris Pearlman admits it "may end up costing the club more".

"We would be nothing without the fans," he said. "The reality of the Premier League is that TV revenues have grown so significantly that it is disproportionate to not only every other league but also every other source of income within the Premier League.

"Having said that, a majority of that money is then invested back into the players."

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish said supporters are "the only ones that matter".

"The people that support the team are the people who generate all the interest, the chatter around the club, the intrigue and the interest."

Tottenham, who are set to move into their new 62,062-seat stadium later this season, said they "re-invest everything back into the club and community" and emphasised how "all revenue streams are interrelated".

Hull City vice-chairman Ehab Allam, whose family owns the club and has a difficult relationship with supporters despite overseeing their most successful era, said the fanbase is "crucial".

Overall, ticket sales make up about a quarter of the average club's income, according to analysis of the 2016-17 accounts of 61 football clubs from England's top four divisions that provided a figure for ticket sales or similar income.

Some relied on it far more than others.

Leaving aside any loans or funding from owners, and not taking into account whether the club made a profit or a loss, Sheffield United were found to be most reliant on matchday income in three of the four seasons - between 2013-14 and 2016-17 - analysed by BBC Sport and BBC England's data unit.

The Blades made £7.9m from tickets out of a total revenue of £11.4m in their League One title-winning season of 2016-17, which was just under 70p in every £1.

They were one of five clubs from England's third tier to feature in the top 10 list of clubs most reliant on fans, with BBC's Price of Football research in 2017 also showing that the division saw a fall in average matchday and season ticket prices.

Clubs, however, need more than just ticket sales, sponsorship and broadcasting revenues to survive.

Accounts show 20 clubs out of 66 spent more on their staff costs - which include everyone from players to office workers - than they made.

For example, Bolton Wanderers - a club that has staved off threats of administration in recent years - spent £12.6m on staffing but made just £8.26m before tax and other costs. That is 153% of its turnover for the year.

Wilson said stadium-going supporters remain "the lifeblood" of many clubs outside the Premier League.

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_________________---"Nobody seems to want to live in a democracy anymore. All they want is to live in a dictatorship that supports their point of view."

The question the is why are ticket prices not coming down or atleast remain reasonable for the blue collar fan?

_________________The difficulties of statistical thinking describes a puzzling limitation of our mind: our excessive confidence in what we believe we know, and our apparent inability to acknowledge the full extent of our ignorance and the uncertainty of the world we live in. We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events -- Daniel Kahneman (2011), Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

The question the is why are ticket prices not coming down or atleast remain reasonable for the blue collar fan?

Greed. As long as there are punters willing to pay, prices will continue to go up. Some clubs have waiting lists for season tickets even though some of them cost over £1,000. Somebody said one day the game will eat itself. It's just a matter of time b/4 the greed becomes unsustainable and the punters stop coming. Then we will see how they can sell a spectacle on TV without fans.

The question the is why are ticket prices not coming down or atleast remain reasonable for the blue collar fan?

Greed. As long as there are punters willing to pay, prices will continue to go up. Some clubs have waiting lists for season tickets even though some of them cost over £1,000. Somebody said one day the game will eat itself. It's just a matter of time b/4 the greed becomes unsustainable and the punters stop coming. Then we will see how they can sell a spectacle on TV without fans.

KPOM to think my club Arsenal waiting list for people that want to buy season ticket is more than 25.000 fans in line